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(this is a list of a handful of new, featured or recommended items, but several
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For the latest new additions to the store, even before they're added to the list of recommended items below, check our
news blog, our Facebook profile, or our Twitter feed:

Bruno Sanfilippo - ClarOscuro
(AD21 category)
(Price: $13.99) "Barcelona-based Bruno Sanfilippo is a classically trained and electronic musician, a composer and a pianist. He has been exploring the borders of minimal piano concepts and electroacoustic music for more than 20 years. His CD series Piano Textures sets him in a tradition of artists such as Harold Budd and Brian Eno, combining slow piano tunes with electronic soundscapes. Now with ClarOscuro he makes his step into modern classical music by presenting his first composition work for piano trio. Most of the nine tracks on the album feature Sanfilippo along with the collaboration of the spanish musicians Manuel del Fresno on cello and Pere Bardagi on violin, while some of the tracks still let the sensitive piano playing stands on its own. With the fragility and beauty of some Arvo PÃ¤rt compositions and a high cinematic touch, ClarOscuro brings the perfect soundtrack for an imaginary movie."...
(more/buy)

Dave Fulton - Of These Things Left Unsaid
(Hypnos section)
($12.99 CD)Of Those Things Left Unsaid, the first new solo release in over a decade from Dave Fulton, former member of electronic group Dweller at the Threshold, will sound familiar to long-term listeners, incorporating a blend of rich analog and modular electronics
along with digital synthesizers, plus piano and guitar.

Perhaps Fulton's most emotive and personal work, Of Those Things Left Unsaid should not only appeal to existing fans of Fulton's
earlier solo and collaborative works, but also those listeners
seeking a blend of retro and modern electronic sounds with a smooth musicality.

Jeff Pearce - With Evening Above
(Miscellaneous category)
(Price: $12.99) With Evening Above is the first ambient guitar album from Jeff Pearce since his Bleed album in 2002. Inspired by many summer nights of stargazing, the music on With Evening Above covers the styles that Jeff has become known for in the past 21 years- the gentle rhythms of the title track, the slow-motion beauty of The Same Stars, the meditative ambient drift of After Dark- all created with only electric guitar and complex signal processing.

Subradial - Ice Diving
(Hypnos section)
($12.99) 2014. Subradial is the musical alias of Tomasz Szatewicz, who was born in the small Polish town of Mragowo. He's been creating electronic music for twenty years, and has previously released the albums Bioloophorm 1, Bioloophorm 2 and Biorephorm on labels such as dataObscura and AtmoWoroks. His more recent work combines drones, subtle rhythmic loops and textures into churning, visually evocative soundworlds.

Ice Diving, his first release for Hypnos Recordings, is an album composed around a theme suggested by the title: a soundtrack to an underwater journey. Like the title, the cover photo (from an actual ice diving expedition in Antarctica) gives a sense of the sound worlds evoked by Subradial's music. Many ambient recording artists apply titles to their music intending to suggest a theme, but here the effect is especially strong.

Audela - NBPN
(Plague category)
(Price: $9.99) "Seventh in the Black Death series from the mysterious, intergalactic ambient formation Audela (the name refers to the French Au-Dela , which means other world or beyond). Dark, expansive, frosty atmospherics with deep space tones, static hisses, metallic chirps and distant chimes. Slow, ominous and cosmic ambient spanning the years 1992 - 2009. Comes in a card sleeve." -coldspring.co.uk...
(more/buy)

The long form version of Over-soul began as a seed of an idea—a track just over 9 minutes on my 2011 self-released album, “Upwelling.” The original inspiration for this long form piece was my readings from various esoteric sources, and the idea that although we may see ourselves as separate, isolated and alone, in fact we all are individual expressions of one unifying, all-encompasing source, and therefore linked to that source and ultimately to one another.
Over the past 3 years, I’ve expanded and elaborated on this original idea. The result is this 61 minute long form piece, divided into three seamless dexpanses of driftscape: i-The Wise Silence; ii-The Collective Heart; iii-Unity. Over-soul was created entirely with keyboards and medicine drum."
-Steve Brand

"...a haunting drone piece that is awash with sound & texture, a piece that moves and evolves throughout the hourâ€¦Steve Brand is a consistently excellent musician and Over-Soul is a timely reminder."-Headphonaught...
(more/buy)

Lammergeyer - Between the Lines
(Dataobscura category)
(Price: $13.99) "Lammergeyer returns with a precious collection of what could be called minatures. Eighteen tracks of inventive and often visceral ambient electronica that varies from achingly beautiful to enigmatically intimate and experimental. Expect both a delicacy and lyricism, plus an underlying sensibility that gives to the tracks the sense of listening to a single undulating storyline." ...
(more/buy)

Robert Davies - Forgotten Harbors
(Dataobscura category)
(Price: $13.99) "Davies is an artist on a mission. His music delves into an almost mystical encounter with very particular, secluded and intimate recesses of nature. Deeply involved and seriously consistent, Forgotten Harbors continues the exploration."...
(more/buy)

Antonio Testa & Michel Moglia - Forget the Past
(Hypnos section)
($12.99 CD) 2013. Antonio Testa (www.antoniotesta.info) may be best known for his ethno-ambient collaborations with Alio Die, but he has also released a diverse variety of solo ambient music on such labels as Hic Sunt Leones, Faria and Emit. Testa's collaborator Michel Moglia, credited here with fire organ, flute and drones, will be a new name to most.

Max Corbacho - The Ocean Inside (2CD)
(AD21 category)
(Price: $19.99) Max Corbacho returns with a new work, this time as a double album, which again immerse ourselves into touching atmospheric ambient realms of pure beauty. The Ocean Inside is a paradise of lush, cascading long chords, as oceanic waves, back and forth, in an eternal flow of shifting tones and spiraling harmonies. This is music aimed at energy, emotional and mind levels, for listeners who love deep, meditative ambient music...
(more/buy)

Bruno Sanfilippo - Piano Textures 3
(AD21 category)
(Price: $13.99) "Had a listener's only exposure to Bruno Sanfilippo come about through hearing his recent Hypnos recording Urbs, said listener would have identified him as an exceptionally refined sound-sculptor working in the electro-acoustic ambient field. But the classically trained Sanfilippo also issues minimalist piano recordings, of which Piano Textures 3 is a particularly impressive example." -Textura.org...
(more/buy)

Bruno Sanfilippo & Max Corbacho - Bioma
(AD21 category)
(Price: $13.99) "BIOMA (In english, Biome), is a large community of plants and animals that occupies a distinct region. Terrestrial biomes, typically defined by their climate and dominant vegetation, include grassland, tundra, desert, tropical rainforest, and deciduous and coniferous forests. There are two basic aquatic biomes, freshwater and marine, which are sometimes further broken down into categories such as lakes and rivers or pelagic, benthic, and intertidal zones. The idea of this album was born after some field recordings made â€‹â€‹in different places in the province of Tarragona, Spain, during spring 2010. The electronics were created a year later in the recording studio of each artist and assembled in the sequencer to the final mix. The result of this union is a particular and unique Biome, a real living, mesmerizing and breathing system on a single long form track of nearly 59 minutes...
(more/buy)

Aglaia - Otherworldliness
(Hic Sunt Leones category)
(Price: $15.99) Digipak. Suspended atmospheres, a mix of ageless sounds are the essence of Otherwordliness. Sounds that meet
along border lines, beyond wordly dimension. Every moment is incomprehensible, every space is far, it becomes horizon when it
comes in contact with the eyes, every fragment of life is a sound that it gets lost into infinite. We can only listen....
(more/buy)

Aglaia - Centurian
(Hic Sunt Leones category)
(Price: $15.99) Digipak. Centurion, the new work by Aglaia, is a dark album, touching. Each note is vibrant and
breathes. New electronic sounds, among the most interesting created from the universe Aglaia, seem to generate sparks
and ashes; frequencies are unstable and elusive waves that survive only for a few moments. The songs are short chapters of
a journey in places where shadows dwell, memories, and flashes at times. The dramatic element is relevant, the classical
and ambient soundscapes of Aglaia seem to give way to a kind of progressive-ambient... There\'s a story hidden among the
sounds, a path that has a beginning and an end. Everyone will be able to travel in space and time of this enigmatic
albums and become what they listen... Happy journey!...
(more/buy)

"A sequel to the final release on the late Pete Namlook's legendary Fax label, this finds erstwhile UK collaborators Lee Norris (Metamatics, Norken, Nacht Plank, etc.) & Michael Gainford (Mick Chillage) on an exploration into the space between your ears, where silence and motion assume grand proportions, rhythms arise, pulse, then dissipate, and tranquility is found at the murky intersections of shadow and substance. More of a headrush than its predecessor, an aural snapshot recalling the pioneering early 90s heyday of ambient dub and IDM hybrids, \"Autumn of Communion 2\" does both its creators and Namlook's legacy proud."
-http://anodizesound.bandcamp.com/...
(more/buy)

"Within Reason, aka longtime aural mystifier Gregory Kyryluk, forges a bond between 70s Euro space fantasias, the skanking digital substreams of Basic Channel, and contemporary slo-mo rhythmic auteurs such as Bvdub, Vladislav Delay, and Wolfgang Voigt's Gas project. "Transient Broadcasts" embraces a variety of mood-states and tonal dualities but it's Kyryluk's skillful arrangements that rearrange conceivably familiar tropes into a chilly otherness, as rubbery beats sink into foggy embankments and pulsations ebb in thickening concentric circles. Most current practitioners of what is nominally known as dubtech or ambient techno or any other pat genre shorthand are content with the tried-and-truisms of reverb and delay; Kyrylukâ€˜s fascination with sound processing reflects an omnivorous interest in electronicaâ€™s last 40 years of experimentative zeal."
-http://anodizesound.bandcamp.com/...
(more/buy)

Robert Rich - Trances & Drones (2CD)
(Hypnos section)
($14.99, 2CD) 2013. Hypnos is pleased to collaborate with Robert Rich on this deluxe reissue
of Rich's out of print classic ambient drone work.

Originally released on cassette individually
three decades ago, Trances and Drones were later released together on double-CD
by Extreme (1994) and Release (2000).
Our new edition, designed to be the ultimate archival version of an essential ambient/drone classic,
includes a beautiful 6-panel digipak with 8-page full-color booklet insert.

Vidna Obmana - An Opera for Four Fusion Works (4CDs)
(Hypnos label)
(Price: NOW $21.99, 4CDs) It was always our intention to lower the price of Vidna Obmana's An Opera for Four Fusion Works series once
the final act was released. Not only have we cut the price on the "Acts 1-4" package from $41.99 to $34.99, we've also
slightly reduced the individual disc prices, for those of you who have purchased part of the series, but not all.

For those unfamiliar with this Vidna Obmana "series" release, each "Act" involved a collaboration between Vidna Obmana
and a different recording artist, and was released separately. "Act 1" was a single-disc release, but packaged in a 4-CD
case designed to hold all four Acts together. Acts 2, 3 and 4 were released in a paper sleeve with a booklet, to be inserted
in the Act 1 case (or, of course, they fit into a standard CD case if you prefer not to buy Act 1)...
Act 1 featuring Dreams in Exile, $10.99 (more/buy)
Act 2 featuring Bill Fox, $9.99 (more/buy)
Act 3 featuring Kenneth Kirschner, $9.99 (more/buy)
Act 4 featuring Steven Wilson, $9.99 (more/buy)
Acts 1-4 combined, $21.99 (more/buy)

Aidan Baker - Aneira
(Glacial Movements category)
(Price: $14.99) Aneira (Welsh for 'snow') is one long, slowly changing piece created using only a 12-string acoustic guitar,
manipulated and played with different tools, as a sound source in order to make sounds resembling that of ice moving or breaking
and of wind or snowstorms. Aidan Baker also wrote a poem about Aneira, that will be inside the digipack....
(more/buy)

Pjusk - Tele
(Glacial Movements category)
(Price: $14.99) Pjusk is Rune Sagevik and Jostein Dahl Gjelsvik from the west coast of Norway - both from small villages close to
nature. The sound of Pjusk is inspired by the harsh Norwegian weather and wild landscape. At the center point of the collaboration
between the two is an old cabin high up in the mountains. This is where most of the music of Pjusk is made â€“ framed by snowy peaks
and the sound of cold streams. The album "Tele" (the Norwegian word describing frozen underground water) is a natural progression
from the album SVAL released on the US label 12k in 2010. Inspired by the arctic wilderness, Tele is a journey of snow, ice and cold....
(more/buy)

Bvdub - I Remember (Translations of MÃ¸rketid)
(Glacial Movements category)
(Price: $14.99) TRACK LIST:
1. This Place Has Only Known Sadness (16:08) /
2. We Said Forever (14:40) /
3. The Promise (reprise) Feat. David Williams (14:40) /
4. Would It Be The Same (13:28) /
5. There Was Nothing But Beauty In My Heart (13:20) /
6. A Taste Of Your Own Medicine (06:25)...
(more/buy)

RETINA.IT - Descending into Crevasse
(Glacial Movements category)
(Price: $14.99) "'Descending into Crevasse' is a sort of metaphor. An ipotetic journey between the gorges of eternal ices, such as a
travel inside ourself researching reassuring corners. A flux of muffled and confused memories, frosted in a wave moving like an algorithm....
(more/buy)

Robert Rich - Sunyata & Inner Landscapes (2CD)
(Hypnos section)
($14.99, 2CD)
Of this new release, Robert says:Three decades after the release of my early works “Sunyata” (1982)
and “Inner Landscapes” (1985), we created an archival edition with
the help of Mike Griffin at Hypnos, who sponsored the first CD
re-issues of these albums back in the late 1990s. After those
pressings sold out, we decided to wait before bringing them back,
assuming that the interest in physical media might be diminishing
in favor of downloads. As it happens, people still express interest
in getting a beautiful artistic package holding music that somehow
stays relevant after all these years. “Sunyata & Inner Landscapes”
will be the first of two double CD re-issues with beautiful digipack
artwork and an 8 page booklet, followed in a few months with another
archival edition of “Trances & Drones.”

Robert Rich - Nest
(Robert Rich category)
(Price: $13.99) Latest from Robert Rich.
"NEST begins with the kind of resolve many other CDs end on. With consonant chords and spare piano notes
Robert Rich begins a wonderful journey through eight distinctive music tracks and contemplative moods.
Although some of Rich\'s work seems to dispense with the idea of beginning, middle and end, NEST does
possess a vague compositional arc. Using steel guitar, bells, flutes, synthesizers, piano and
environmental recordings, alone or in various combinations, Rich realizes beautifully detailed
soundscapes from just a small number of sources."
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END...
(more/buy)

Numina - The Deception of Reality
(Hypnos section)
(Price: $12.99)The Deception of Reality is the fourth Numina release on Hypnos, the first since 2007's Shift to the Ghost.
Still present is Numina's trademark sound, combining abstract deep-space textures with subtle melodic and rhythmic elements, but with
a new emphasis on more vivid sonics. Listeners seeking smooth, creamy synthesizer background textures will still find them,
here overlaid with more "up front" accents. Extra care has been taken in the mixing and mastering to preserve the separation and
placement of individual instruments, and we believe the result is the best pure sound experience Numina has ever come up with.

As with the last Numina album, The Deception of Reality is a continuous, long-form ambient music piece of about 72 minutes,
broken into five "tracks" for listening convenience. Unlike much long-form ambient, this sound work is ever-changing, continually
evolving in mood and sound texture, bringing in new instruments while fading out old ones. Despite its continuous format, the album
is so varied across its duration that most listeners would likely never notice they're listening to a single unbroken piece.

Steve Roach - Back to Life (2CD)
(Projekt category)
(Price: $17.99, 2CD) Back to Life is a masterful expression drawing from the realm of Steve Roach's mythic imagination: an enveloping experience of vast beauty and mystery. These harmonically rich, multi-layered pieces breathe with an elemental ebb and flow; with the 2-CD Back to Life, Steve achieves a new pinnacle within the ambient line of his oeuvre. The vitality on display within Back to Life owes a lot to Steve's fresh approach towards production, sound and creative inspiration, the result of a period of personal changes and the yearning to forge deeper into his evolving sound. After "hitting the reset button on the foundation of my life beyond music," Steve returned to the studio with a vibrant energy and focus. Even the most spiritual and mysterious creations are marked by sensations of weightlessness and an airy, shimmering translucent tonal palette. Although foremost a soundscape-oriented work, rhythmic pulses are frequently embedded deep into the structure of the surrounding atmospheres. Serene yet suspended drifts and propulsive dynamics merge into a single texture. Back to Life is a soundworld where rhythm and textures become one; the potential for complex interrelations has significantly increased...
(more/buy)

Forrest Fang - Animism
(Projekt category)
(Price: $13.99) On his ninth album, Animism, Chinese-American musician Forrest Fang creates a diverse musical style that fuses timeless Fourth World acoustic instruments with a modern fractal ambient sound. Inspired by the ancient belief that all living and inanimate forms possess a spirit or life force, Fang has composed eight pieces that radiate with energy and warmth.

Besides acoustic and electric violins and mandolins, he embellishes his atmospheric textures with melodies and polyrhthms from stringed and percussion instruments such as the Turkish lavta, Peruvian bandurria, Filipino kulintang, Mexican cantaro and Balinese kendang.
Animism is a celebration of life's internal rhythms and their ultimate path to rest...
(more/buy)

Sanfilippo's work ranges from more melodic and structured to ambient drones with more a subtle and subdued
musical component. Urbs, Sanfilippo's first project released with Hypnos Recordings, falls nicely
in the middle ground among the artist's previous work. It's an intriguing combination of ambient textures
with location sound recordings, along the lines of the classic Hypnos releases Sonic Continuum (Modell
and Mantra) and Silence Speaks in Shadow (Paul Vnuk Jr.), but with more of an urban or cityscape flavor.

The title Urbs derives from the prominent incorporation urban sound environments, recorded
by Sanfilippo in urban environments such as train stations, streets, bars and other public areas to
explore the boundaries between the textural sounds which surround all of us day to day, and the nature of
composed sound art such as music. These "real world" sound textures merge with more traditional
electronics such as synthesizers and samplers, leaving no doubt as to the composed and "intentional"
nature of these soundscapes.

Gentle and evocative, subtly textural and transporting, Urbs is something we genuinely expect to
become a long-term favorite among Hypnos releases.

Sleep Research Facility - Stealth (2CD)
(Coldspring category)
(Price: $19.99, 2CD) Sublime new album from the drone / dark ambient legend. As a project commissioned for Cold Spring, "Stealth" presents itself as an exploration of sounds neither here nor there, textures camouflaged against their own background noise, and the distant crackling telemetric code-speak of a vague humanity hidden behind a cloak of deadly high-technology. Comprising of five deeply-layered extended tracks, mixed and edited from re-sampled location recordings originally captured inside the hangar environs of a Northrop-Grumman B-2 Stealth Bomber, during a period of downtime maintenance at a U.S. Air Force base in Cambridgeshire, England. Original field recordings and texture preparations by FOURM/Si_Comm. First edition pressing of 1000 copies includes bonus disc comprised of this pre-mix material in its original, un-edited form, as a representation of the source audio from which Stealth was reconstituted. Deep listening inspired by one of the most mysterious aircraft of the twentieth-century. Headphones recommended....
(more/buy)

Lull & Beta Cloud & Andrew Lilies - Circadian Rhythm Disturbance Reconfigured
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $12.99) From England to the United States and back again... it all started as a simple drone project between LULL (aka Mick Harris of Scorn, ex-Napalm Death) and BETA CLOUD (aka Carl Pace), based on the concept of how insomnia can effect your thought patterns. Billows of powerful bass drones set to indistinct flourishes of temporary insanity. The original track is there, but also included is a fierce remix track by legendary sound artist Andrew Liles (NURSE WITH WOUND). Fans of Lull and Beta Cloud will really sink their teeth into this one; what Liles has created here is not a simple remix but a raging, deconstruction as only he can do. Originally released as a limited 3\" CD in 2008, now proudly presented in a deluxe digipak edition with stunning new artwork. A captivating listen for dark ambient and harsh noise fans alike....
(more/buy)

Steven Severin - Blood of a Poet
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $12.99) Acclaimed solo artist and founding member of the legendary Siouxsie and the Banshees, Steven Severin's debut album for Cold Spring Records is titled Blood Of A Poet (Le Sang d'un Poete). This album is his entire soundtrack to Jean Cocteau's 1930 black & white surrealist classic and is the second in his ongoing series of Music For Silents....
(more/buy)

Oophoi & Paul Vnuk Jr. - Dreamfields
(Nextera category)
(Price: $13.99) Newly added to the Hypnos store, Dreamfields by Oophoi & Paul Vnuk Jr. It's a sequel of sorts to the highly regarded and critically acclaimed album Distance To Zero released in 2006 on Hypnos, this time released on the Czech label Nextera.

Paul Vnuk, rican synthesist, percussionist and sound designer, also known from tribal ambient duo Ma Ja Le with Christopher Short, reveals:
"For me the story of Dreamfields starts before our [Gigi's & my] first collaboration Distance to Zero. Back in 2005 I sent Gigi a CD of loops improvised in my studio on a Lexicon Jamman and a Boomerang looping pedal. Part of those even included my then 8-year-old son reading improvised poetry. These loops were meant to get the ball rolling on our collaboration, but rather than using these loops at the time, Gigi instead sent me back a set of all new tracks that were inspired by my loops. I then added my parts and that became our 1st album. Then in 2009, unknown to me he went back to those original loops and blended them into his alchemic audio processes and created a whole new musical work. I then spent parts of 2010 and 2011 overdubbing further additions, crafting a final mix and a master. Dreamfields is a deep collaboration made up of many layers. I see it as a great sonic painting that contains a nice balance of our individual voices as well as some new sonic landscapes that neither of us expected and I am very proud of the result!"...(more/buy)

Steve Roach/Vir Unis - Body Electric
(Projekt category)
(Price: $13.99) Steve Roach - Analog and Digital Instruments, Groove Creation, Prehispanic and Shamanic Percussion and Voice, Atmospheres, Soundworlds and Processing. Vir Unis - Fractal Groove Creation, Synthesizers, Treatments, Atmospheres and Soundworlds.
From the gene pool of possibilities, an evolutionary mandala emits the music of chance, while the electric body emerges intelligent and in an awakened state of eternal becoming. Forged out of the primordial protoplasm from which we crawled, Body Electric is a cyber-shamanistic celebration of man and machine.

Steve Roach and Vir Unis combine different rhythmic sensibilities and undeniable soundscapes in an alchemical reaction, creating an aural sensation that is surreal, hallucinogenic, but still organically human. Body Electric is a welcomed edition to the borderless world of new electronic music; this album is a zenith in bio-electronic body music, an evolutionary spark, a focused, high-energy trip of life-affirming, hyper-terrestrial grooves and sustained, soul-expanding sound worlds...
(more/buy)

"This recording is a soothing, enveloping soundscape, ideal for quieting the mind and calming the body. The gentle ebb and flow of warm synthesizer textures are based on the rhythm of breathing, and entrains the listeners' own respiration to its serene pace. It's useful for setting a tone in a room, for aiding in meditation, for easing the transition to sleep, but it's also sensually pleasing."--Reviewed by New Age Voice Magazine...
(more/buy)

Steve Roach/Byron Metcalf - The Serpent's Lair (2CD)
(Projekt category)
(Price: $17.99, 2CD) Beginning as a collaboration between Roach and Metcalf, the music on The Serpent's Lair evolved over the past year into an epic 2-CD set, augmented with a myriad of guests. For those familiar with Roach's work, this release has it all. Steve's ultra-soundworlds, hybrid grooves and magical production combined with Byron's acoustic-organic tribal trance patterns set disk 1 in motion (in all directions). Aligning with themes of shamanic initiation found throughout the world, this disc is rooted in the organic . . . the earth . . . the ancestors . . . and the initiatory energy of focused transformational ritual practice which is integrated into the alchemical fire of psycho-spiritual death and rebirth. It is here that one is confronted with all the essential elements of danger and possibility.

Disk 2 -- subtitled Offerings To The Underworld -- is built around musical elements from disc 1, yet forges a sonic alchemy as it dives deeper. Thought at times rhythmic, the overall feeling is a floating, pulsing, breathing adventure through a system of underground rivers and caves, inspiring fantastic epsiodes along the way. Guests on The Serpent's Lair include Vicki Richards, Vidna Obmana, Jeffrey Fayman, Momodou \"Mohammad\" Kah, Jorge Reyes, Jim Cole, Lena Stevens and Vir Unis...
(more/buy)

Caul - Let the Stars Assume the Whole of Night
(Hypnos section)
(Price: $12.99)
Caul has released an array of incredible dark, cinematic ambient music, but much of it has been self-released in small quantities, so many listeners who might potentially enjoy his work might be unfamiliar with it. His collaboration with Numina, Inside the Hollow Realm, did receive a fair bit of attention five or six years ago, but Caul has mostly flown under the radar. As I mentioned, most of his work has been self-released, often in elegant, artisanal hand-made packaging. See his Discogs Page for more information about his work, or his own site at caul.org/.

Let the Stars Assume the Whole of Night is a wonderful mix of sounds and atmospheres: dark without being spooky, melodic but not pretty, listenable, but too nervous and somber to ever become predictable. These pieces are more composed and structured than most ambient music, more akin to the soundtrack for some dark and moody piece of cinema. Imagine the score to an undiscovered work by David Lynch or Andrei Tarkovsky and you have the idea. Listen to the sound clips below and decide for yourself.

Seren Ffordd & Oophoi - The Martian Chronicles
(Hypnos section)
(Price: $12.99)The Martian Chronicles, inspired by Ray Bradbury's story collection of
the same name, sounds very much like the soundtrack to a mysterious and strange
science fiction film that exists only in the imaginations of Seren Ffordd and Oöphoi.
These seven tracks, while slow, moody and at times weirdly alien, also evoke a
drama and emotional depth absent from much recent ambient music. It's a complex
and beautiful mixture of electronic instruments, field recordings and percussion.

These artists will both likely be familiar to Hypnos listeners.
Seren Ffordd has released several albums on our Hypnos Secret Sound
imprint, and also contributed to the Hypnos compilation Sounds of a
Universe Overheard. The name Seren Ffordd (real name Andy Benford) is
Welsh for Star Road, Way of Stars or Milky Way.

Oöphoi himself released Athlit in 2002,
Distance to Zero (with Paul Vnuk) in 2006, and his Nebulae group project
album Path of White Clouds in 2011, all on Hypnos.
Gianluigi Gasparetti, the man behind Oöphoi, first
became known for creating the excellent Italian music periodical Deep Listenings.
His Oöphoi persona burst onto the ambient music scene in the late 1990s and
quickly became one of the most talented and prolific sound artists around. He
founded the now-defunct labels Umbra and Penumbra, which released the earliest
recordings of Seren Ffordd. After working together in this capacity for several years
The Martian Chronicles is their first collaboration, but not their last; the
pair has already completed another full album worth of material.

A Produce & Loren Nerell - Intangible
(Hypnos section)
(Price: $12.99) 2011. The first collaboration between two artists well-known to
Hypnos listeners and fans of ambient & experimental music in
general.

While Intangible has a meditative and tranquil drifting quality, it also
incorporates more melodic and rhythmic elements than most ambient music of
the present day. Listeners who like their ambience musical will enjoy this as much
as those who like their drones deep and mystical.

Though it's the duo's first collaboration together,
both of them have been releasing music for about a quarter century. These guys are
responsible for some of our "Desert Island Disc" listening material here at Hypnos HQ (A Smooth
Surface and Lilin Dewa are both long-time favorites). Often
at Hypnos we try to introduce new, fresh talent to our listeners, but this is a
case of two music-makers who know all the tricks, and yet continue to create
work as vibrant and inspired as anything on the cutting edge.

A Produce has released ten albums, including two on Hypnos (Smile
on the Void solo, and Altara in collaboration with Hypnos
founder M. Griffin). Loren Nerell has released solo work on Amplexus, Soleilmoon,
and Side Effects, and collaborated with ambient music giant Steve Roach on
Terraform in 2006.

Saul Stokes - Sleek Nucleus
(Stokes category)
(Price: $12.99) Saul Stokes is definitely one of the most popular artists associated with Hypnos (though he
has also released a lot of music for other labels as well). This is Saul's
first self-released CD, in a distinctive folder-type package, but the music still has that
recognizable "Stokes sound."

Saul says:
Stokes is pleased to announce the release of Sleek Nucleus. Eight effervescent songscapes
that simply redefine electronic music. Each song is a crafted fusion of contemporary rhythm
and melody sculpted from Stokes' hand-made electronic instruments. A lasting and unforgettable
electronic album, Sleek Nucleus continues Stokes' 17 year history of merging sonic innovation
with soulful song composition.

Seren Ffordd - Floating (Ltd CDR)
(Hypnos Secret Sounds section)
(Price: $9.99, ltd cdr)Floating is the third release in our reissue series of the out of print recordings by Seren Ffordd, an
ambient artist residing in Wales. Originally released in 2006 on the Italian label Umbra (operated by the great
Italian genius of ambient soundscapes, Oophoi) and now out of print, Floating has been reworked slightly
by Seren Ffordd for enhanced sound quality.

We have previously released Arythmia and Stellar Nurseries in this reissue series, and previously
released Seren Ffordd's album Veils, Shadows on Hypnos Secret Sounds a few years earlier.

Steve Brand - Avatara
(Hypnos section)
(Price: $12.99) Steve Brand got his start releasing experimental music under the name "Augur," and more recently switched
over to releasing music under his own name (both solo and in collaboration with such artists
as Ishq and Disturbed Earth) on the Atmoworks, Hypnos Secret Sounds and Relaxed Machinery labels. He's quickly established
himself as one of the more interesting and distinctive artists working in ambient music, and having released two
albums Bridge to Nowhere and Children of Alcyone on Hypnos Secret Sounds in 2008 and 2009, we're very
excited to follow up with Steve Brand's new album Avatara on the main Hypnos imprint.
This album has a ritual feel common to many of Brand's recordings, though Avatara is more ambient and less percussive.
The recording starts out in a place of low-key contemplation and evolves through distinct stages and moods, though it is always gentle and meditative.

Steve Brand describes some of the inspirations behind this album:Avatara is Sanskrit for "descent" in the sense of a deity's descent from heaven to earth. Avatara is inspired by the various avatars of various ages and cultures...Yeshua,
Quan Yin, Buddha, Brigit, Krishna, Saint Germain, White Buffalo Calf Woman, and others. I’m fascinated by the idea and the various stories in various ages and cultures of
humans becoming "ascended masters," or avatars, non-human beings that still are attached to humans and choose to returns to Earth to assist them. The stories vary, and
almost every culture has its masters, but one thing is consistent throughout each of their stories, they've realized a more expanded expression of being and awareness, of
what we are and what we are capable of, and return to assist other human beings.

Saul Stokes - Vast
(Foundry category)
(Price: $13.99) Saul Stokes returns to the music scene with Vast, a showcase for his unique brand of electronica. With Vast Stokes explores new territory utilizing a highly
developed lyrical sense built, as ever, on the idiosyncratic sound of his hand-forged equipment. These tracks are truly multi-faceted, and the many detailed sonic embellishments,
as well as the fluid structures, set Vast apart....
(more/buy)

Alison Wait - Dove Esistono Solo I Ricordi
(Miscellaneous category)
(Price: $13.99) The name and the cover art bring to mind something soft and feminine, yet this is a recording by two male ambient artists from Italy, and
is quite moody and even dark in tone. Packaged in a beautiful, glossy full-color fold-out sleeve similar to a digipak.

"Alison Wait is the gift of the past. Remembrances of long gone days. Childhood memories amplified through the glass of melancholy. A journey hand in hand with what has
been and will never return. Dark ambiences melt with guitars & lush synths - come with us to the place where Alison Waits"...
(more/buy)

Nebulæ - The Path of White Clouds
(Hypnos section)
(Price: $12.99) Hypnos is pleased to reissue this classic ambient album first released by the Stella Maris label. Nebulæ (previously known as "Nebula")
is an European ambient supergroup of sorts, featuring Oophoi, Tau Ceti, Mathias Grassow, Klaus Wiese, Lorenzo Pierobon, Luna, and Mauro Malgrande.
This is a beautiful, ethereal and abstract ambient recording, which certainly deserved greater attention than it received prior to the demise of Stella
Maris, which existed only long enough to release two Nebula albums.
That first release was a limited edition CDR but our reissue is a professionally
manufactured CD in a beautiful digipak with new graphics.

The Path of White Clouds explores a serene and otherworldly soundspace. Meditative and gentle, these six tracks are sure to appeal to
listeners who enjoy the more spacious ambient works released by Oophoi during the height of his Umbra and Penumra sister labels. The sound
sources utilized here lean more toward the organic and physical instruments, and electronic processing and synthesizers are used subtly to
accentuate the rest.

In the years since this album was released, Oophoi has grown from just another new practitioner of ambient music to a recording artist as respected and
well-loved as any other. We at Hypnos have released other Oophoi works such as Athlit,
and his collaboration with Paul Vnuk Jr. (of Ma Ja Le),
Distance to Zero. We also have an upcoming release The Martian Chronicles by
Oophoi with Seren Ffordd. Usually we focus on releasing
new projects, but sometimes a significant early work becomes completely unavailable. In a case such as this, the material strong enough taht we're sure listeners will
feel it compares favorably with anything recorded since. The Path of White Clouds deserves to be heard.

Rapoon - Dream Circle (Special edition reissue 2010)
(Soleilmoon category)
(Price: $21.99 limited) Beautifully produced re-issue of the very first RAPOON album from 1992, released shortly after the split from ZOVIET FRANCE; a classic of ethno-ambient industrialism.
Dark, esoteric and dense, with a lot of haunting loops, frightening whispers and subtle trance-inducing rhythms. Though itâ€™s nearly 20 years old, it sounds fresh and actual,
as now the spiral of time made its turn bringing us closer to this point of eternal dream circle, just one level higher (or lower, who knows?) The release limited to 500 copies
comes in a mini LP-like embossed cover with inner sleeve, both printed gold-on-black...
(more/buy)

Forrest Fang - Phantoms
(Projekt category)
(Price: $13.99) Phantoms is Forrest Fang's 9th solo album and the follow-up to his Projekt release, Gongland. Nearly eight years in the making, Phantoms builds
on the gamelan-influenced soundscapes of its predecessor by weaving organic sounds of non-Western stringed and percussion instruments and filtering those
sounds through a rich melodic tapestry of warm and vaporous atmospheres. Fang's subtly layered and continually evolving textures combine his Asian influences
with his love of fractal algorithms that reflect the chaotic beauty of nature. The ambiences of Phantoms evoke a state of contemplation within a world in flux. The
centerpiece of the album is a 23-minute ambient suite "The Hallucinations of Hung Tung" inspired by the otherworldly paintings of a Taiwanese fisherman and outsider artist...
(more/buy)

Forrest Fang's Sans Serif: Unbound
(Projekt category)
(Price: $13.99) Unbound is veteran ambient musician Forrest Fang exploring lush and abstract terrain under the Sans Serif moniker. Using very small - at times microscopic -
sounds as source material, Fang utilizes a vocabulary of long shimmering tones that gradually warp, mutate and transform over the course of a piece....
(more/buy)

Herion - Out and About
(Hypnos section)
(Price: $12.99) 2010. Herion is an Italian trio whose members include Emanuele Errante (known to Hypnos customers for Humus on Evan Bartholomew's Somnia label),
Enrico Coniglio (Aqua Dorsa project collaborator with Oophoi for the album Cloudlands, he also released Sea Cathedrals solo on Silentes), and Elisa Marzorati.

They've created a beautiful and compelling combination of delicate musical structures with "glitch" components and strange, experimental little samples.
Always a pleasant, peaceful listen, Out and About brings a blissed-out classical musicality into connection with an artful edge. This combination
of elements results in an especially sensitive, moving set of mood pieces. Somewhere between chamber music and minimalism, between lightness and melancholy,
this trio balances elements uncommon in ambient music.

Pre-release review:"Emanuele Errante, Enrico Coniglio, and Elisa Marzorati have created a wonderful album that moves right to the soul of the listener. While I was familiar with Emanuele Errante,
who released the excellent Humus album on Somnia in 2008, the other performers were a mystery to me. Marzorati’s piano motifs, mixed with Coniglio’s multi-faceted
contributions involving melodica, harmonica, and treated guitar, all meld beautifully with Errante’s orchestral arrangements."-–Review by Michael Vitrano for Fluid Radio

Hypnos is very pleased to release the first album this this trio. Out and About is not only a departure in terms of sound, but is also the Hypnos label's first release in
digipak format. Here are pictures to give a sense of the package (click on images to see super-big version). See below for sample audio clips in mp3 format.

Statement by Will of Celer: "In February of 2008, Dani and I recorded, mixed, and completed the music for 'Salvaged Violets'. The words came as the subject line of a
short poem, sent to me over email, included with an unrelated question. During these weekdays, our working schedules were almost the opposite, but we spoke over
email constantly. Until recently, I did not notice how similar this was to our beginnings, sending letters as we were on different sides of the country. With no conceptual
idea in mind, and since we were apart for so much time during the weekdays, we decided to begin 'Salvaged Violets', and see what came of it. Every night when I
returned home, before sleeping, I would spend time working on the music that Dani had worked on through the afternoon, and had left on the desk. Every afternoon,
she would find a different version to work on that I had left, and this continued for some time. When together, we would sip our tea, laugh at silly jokes, cook, watch
television, and so on. There was no need for longing while we were together. There was always laughing, pots and pans clanging, or a muttering television. In forming
'Salvaged Violets', we did not mix it in a particular arranged order. It was mixed simply by the order it was first played, compiling many miniature sections rolled into one.
In this case, they were rolled into two. Nothing was discarded, nothing was rearranged. As the sound changed over time, the original form did not. When it was finally
complete, we listened together, for the first time. I remember how familiar it seemed, yet I also felt that so much of it was unknown, and undefined. More than a year
later, in September of 2009, I revisited the recordings for the first time since 2008. At this time, it was being mastered by our good friend Corey Fuller, so I was still
listening to the original. Riding my bike through the endless suburban subdivisions, through the busy downtown streets, I listened repeatedly, for days, over and over.
Something was familiar, but so much I was unable to recall, and yet I was able to relate. I returned home, put my bike against the door, and took my headphones off.
There, in the still silence, I think I understood finally what it was about." ...
(more/buy)

Capricornus - Halation
(Infraction category)
(Price: $11.99) Some nice new minimalist stuff from Infraction. Reviewed by Alan Lockett for furthernoise.org:
"Halation gives off a flat-on-back eyes-to-skies drowsy air with its long drawn out tone-rays. Highly amorphous in strategy, a purist ambient Enovian ethos a la
Thursday Afternoon may suggest itself. On occasion, clusters of notes flicker within the freefloating drone, mirroring the eponymous halation effect - transient
morning brume, or light refracted through water vapour rendered blurred."
Issued in a 4 panel digipak, limited to 500 copies....
(more/buy)

Phragments & Korinth - Mysteries of the Greylands
(Greytone category)
(Price: $9.99) Digipak. "On this album, Phragments and Korinth have united into one monolithic entity, to produce a common opus. Orchestral choirs, dark ambient and ritual passages create a perfect
cinematic journey over the mysterious Greylands, an archetypal and symbolic travel through the hidden side of the world. All songs are the result of collaboration of the two projects, resulting in a unique narrative
experience. After three years of work, Phragments and Korinth deliver a ripe album -- a great journey for the listener."
From Greytone Records...
(more/buy)

SantAAgostino - Operazione Paura
(Greytone category)
(Price: $9.99) Digipak. "Operazione Paura is a total turning not just for the band but for dark, ambient music and noise, generally speaking. That's because santAAgostino is like a meteor crashed onto the
Earth disarranging all the balances, rhythmes and cycles. After the crash the planet seems to be perished but, in the inner part, the new fire of life is burning. A brand new energy developed in a new way of living,
of thinking and being. Operazine Paura speaks of the filmic and horrorific fear, mind trap to kill atavistic thoughts and all those mental factors that trapped the man into a selfmade cage in his own mind, through the
mind itself. Operazione Paura is an awl that, slowly but inexorably, drives the listener to a dimension where there is no thought, no images, no more conceptualizing, nothing still exhists: there is just a huge solitary
desert now, where sounds spontaneously flow creating new monster beyond space and time. It's a place where new divine dynasties born, spreading their seed, in order to bear a brand new reign far from the borders
that we can't even imagine."
From Greytone Records...
(more/buy)

Trama afonA - Trama afonA
(Greytone category)
(Price: $9.99) Digipak. "Trama afonA is gathering suggestions from the contemporary quotidian theatre and at the same time from the past, namely the 19th and early 20th centuries. Paying particular attention to
the individual and specific human stories, rather than to Historyâ€¦ Focusing on what happens behind the scenes, aside, beneath. Subjects and dynamics less showy, blurred, but not consequently less interesting or
worth caring. Opening doors and drawers using the sole curiosity as tool, walking backwards the traces of memory, wandering amid shades and details given by mystery, decadence, abandon, romanticismâ. Carefully
delving into psychological dynamics. Openly denouncing the social plagues, but often humbly providing just visual and sound suggestions."
From Greytone Records...
(more/buy)

Topografia - Genius Loci
(Greytone category)
(Price: $9.99) Digipak. "Genius Loci uses deep drones, acoustic instruments, sounds and field recordings registered near the author's place of living (Jaworzno). The project was inspired by the author's personal fascination
with the diversity of nature and the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who considered nature to be one of the most primaeval manifestations of a blind and aimless will, a will which we too are a part of."...
(more/buy)

Taphephobia - Access to a World of Pain
(Greytone category)
(Price: $9.99) Digipak. "The music Taphephobia makes is mostly based on manipulated guitars (except house of memories that is mostly based on sounds). Taphephobia try to get out the feelings he has at the moment
when Ketil compose the music. The idea is to create a atmosphere that is sometimes scary, and sometimes beautiful, like for example a good thriller drama movie. Taphephobia is very skilled to create a cinematic atmosphere
combined with personal feelings like fear, hope, hate, regrets etcâ€¦ The main goal is to make the listener able to dream away with the music."
-From Greytone Records...
(more/buy)

Moljebka Pvlse - Zojo
(Greytone category)
(Price: $9.99) Digipak. "The Moljebka Pvlse album Zojo was recorded during the Mathias studies at the Royal Institute of Art. He was inspired by the longest night of the year in
Stockholm, the day when there is almost no daylight. His ambition was to make an acoustic album of minimal music without any musical instruments. Moljebka Pvlse setup long nylon
strings across his entire studio at school, which he then plucked and bowed and recorded with his favorite contact microphones on that very night. These recordings became the fundament
of the album and set the tone for the rest of the work." From Greytone Records...
(more/buy)

Relapxych.0 - City Nightlights
(Miscellaneous category)
(Price: $11.99) City Nightlights was built upon field recordings from areas around Stockholm central station, Stadshuskajen, Riddarholmen, Tegelbacken and some abandoned and architecturally left-behind areas under and beneath the main central station, imbuing the six tracks with a tangible spectral presence and greatly enhances their organically drifting nature....
(more/buy)

Llunstorcarnay (Seren Ffordd and Gliese 614) - Lament of a Forgotten God (CDR)
(miscellaneous category)
(Price: $11.99) Debut album from "Llunstorcarnay," a collaboration between Seren Ffordd and Gliese 614. "Lament of a Forgotten God
is inspired by the ancient poems such as the Song of Taliesyn and was recorded between August 2008 - March 2010. The album developed
a life of its own, not quite going where we had intended but drawing us into its own sounds and direction - we are pleased at having given it a voice....
(more/buy)

Seren Ffordd - Arhythmia (Ltd CDR)
(Hypnos Secret Sounds section)
(Price: $9.99, ltd cdr) Reissue of out of print 2005 recording by Seren Ffordd, an ambient artist residing in Wales. This is the second in our series of reissues by this artist, following
Stellar Nurseries, and we previously released his album Veils, Shadows on Hypnos Secret Sounds a few years earlier.
Arhythmia is hypnotic and at times restful, yet often has an "edge" or a discordant quality. It's more "active" than most other Seren Ffordd music

Cycles, patterns and rhythms, the world is full of them. Not the steady beats prevalent in most music, but subtle interlocking rhythms that dance and move through each other. The
flow between the monthly phases of the moon and the daily tides. Stellar precession and the turning of galaxies. The pulsations of our blodd, neurons and breathing.
In five parts, Arhythmia is an exploration of such shifting patterns that can be heard and felt but not danced to. Rhythms and movements of sound that draw the mind and
spirit into other places of dreaming. Arhythmia is a mixture of light and dark textures that contain both flowing and hypnotic elements.
All the sound sources on the CD are acoustic in origin. They include field recordings of Thunder, rain and other things. The rest of the music is created on singing bowls, voice,
gourds and chimes. All the effects and sound manipulations are performed on a Korg D16 digital portastudio. Recorded in June and July 2005.

"Interestingly with a title like Arhythmia, the artwork on the front of this one looks much like the inside of a heart valve, albeit softened in both texture and color.
As for the music, hopefully it won't give you any cardiac trouble. Darker and more experimental than his other discs, here Benford takes us into what he calls 'an exploration
of rhythms that can be heard and felt but not danced to.' Rumbling and churning sounds are joined by a steady rain in the background. Benford notes that the music is divided into
five parts, although it plays as a single track... Arhythmia is daring adventurous fun."--Review by Phil Derby, Electroambient Space

Nordvarger - Pyrrhula
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $13.99) Partly based on an old Swedish folktale, Pyrrhula (doomlord) is a pitch black journey into utter darkness. This is a tale of foreboding
doom... a portent of dark times to come... a blight on the face of this earth. These eight Black Ambient / Doom / Droneworks were brought forth from the
abyss of Villa Bohult exclusively for Cold Spring and contain the malevolent vocals of Lord Nordvargr himself! Beware the small creatures of light, they only
bring misery and death upon the enlightened ones. For they will paint their breast with blood and reap your unborn angels....
(more/buy)

Machinefabriek - Daas
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $13.99) The tracks on Daas have been carefully picked to form a provoking, haunting journey. What the tracks have in common is a sense of
nostalgic graininess. As with the music of Philip Jeck, The Caretaker or William Basinski, these tracks are full of degrading melodies and dusty ambience.
\'Daas\' is the previously unreleased opening track of the album, and features contributions by the great Richard Skelton. Flotter, Koploop and Grom were
previously available on small run self released EPs, while Onkruid was a track previously released on A Room Forever, as an expensive and extremely
limited 12\" boxset. All are now brought to a wider audience. Presented in a laminate digipak...
(more/buy)

Alex Tiuniaev - I Knew Her
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $13.99) I knew Her is a 40-minute long journey of heart-melting, melancholic and neo-symphonic splendour - full of choirs, strings and
neoclassical orchestration. This solitary track builds to a haunting and breathtaking crescendo... then brings the listener gently back down to the warm
earth. A monumental release, with influences ranging from Sigur Ros to Philip Glass and Stars Of The Lid...
(more/buy)

Inade - Aldebaran
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $13.99) Debut CD from the masters of Black Ambient, available again after 6 years! Aldebaran is the black sun of the secret knowledge. This
work focuses on the German Vril society myths of Aldebaran, from which universal spirituality is said to originate. One hour of immense walls of dark,
brooding atmospherics, pulsating anthems of the universal power, mixed with themes of heritage and history. The ultimate document of deep and
cavernous dark ambient...
(more/buy)

Z'EV - Sum Things
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $13.99) These six pieces endeavor to transport the listener deep into their long forgotten memories of the primal forces at the dawn of creation.
Each piece is based on a single sound source. Absolutely no effects of any kind, not even equalization, were applied to the source recordings. Instead,
Z'EV relied solely on the stretching of the duration and pitch of the samples and then edited and mixed the results down into the heart of space...
(more/buy)

Sleep Research Facility - Deep Frieze
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $13.99) Ultra deep, glacial Dark Ambient, based around Antarctic co-ordinates. The polar regions are awe-inspiring environments of
inhospitable minimalism, and at the same time there\'s a beautiful serenity to be found in their uncharted bleakness. There's a powerful purity and
a timelessness to be found there; snow which has lain un-trampled for millennia and ice which formed eons ago; mountain ranges and deserts and
rivers to be found if you look. Deep Frieze is SRF\'s second album for Cold Spring and here deep, resonant, abyss-like drones shine forth from icy
chasms below.
Jewelcase with foldout map booklet...
(more/buy)

Sleep Research Facility - Nostromo
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $13.99) Ultra deep ambience, based on the first 8 minutes of the movie Alien, which depicts the deep space haulage vessel slowly moving
through the void. The disc takes you through a slow trip into the ship via tracks DECK A - E, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Nostromo. Colossal
dark ambience from the abyss, with beautiful artwork that evokes the sinister atmosphere of the ship. Reissue with bonus track Narcissus....
(more/buy)

Tor Lundvall - Ghost Years
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $13.99) "Ghost Years is my first retrospective CD featuring tracks from various compilations, vinyl-only releases plus some unreleased
material. The focus is more on my vocal work, however there are a few instrumental pieces included as well. Although the music spans about a decade,
I was surprised at how well the tracks flow together to make a coherent ensemble, evolving from my earlier song-oriented compositions to the more
ambient nature of my recent recordings."
-Tor Lundvall...
(more/buy)

All Hail the Transcending Ghost - All Hail the Transcending Ghost
(Cold Spring category)
(Price: $13.99) The debut album from AHTTG - a joint collaboration between Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk (MZ.412, Toroidh, Folkstorm etc) and Tim
Bertilsson (Fear Falls Burning, Switchblade). The Swedish duo have created arguably one of the most haunting drone-dark-ambient-industrial works in
recent years, invoking the spirits of old Nordvargr, meets the sludge-doom vibe of Tim\'s hellish guitar. ...truly the most scary music I have recorded,
(Nordvargr.) An icy chill down your spine... a cold hand on your shoulder... you are never alone in the darkness...
(more/buy)

Concert Silence
(Infraction category)
(Price: $13.99) Concert Silence is a collaboration between Charles Buckingham and Matthew Cooper, currently both residing in Portland, Oregon. An ongoing
conversation between the two began in 2004 when they met over a shared interest in live sound manipulation. 09.22.07 was the first major outcome of
discussions regarding symbiotic cultures and their implications to music. A live performance set up was designed, allowing each player to have equal input
and manipulation control, (which can be seen in a diagram within the artwork of the album)....
(more/buy)

Concert Silence - Rain Furniture
(Infraction category)
(Price: $13.99) With Rain Furniture, Charles Buckingham and Matthew Cooper wanted to explore a new and different musical territory than previously traveled, while still using the audio set up from 09.22.07. As a companion piece to the full length, Rain Furniture engages a more raw energy....
(more/buy)

Ben Fleury-Steiner - Keep a Weather Eye Open
(Infraction category)
(Price: $13.99) From the inset,Tender is the opaque morning the scene has been set on Keep a Weather Eye Open into a Bryars-esque dip into the sunken Titanic. Gently clattering china on a slow drop to the bed of the ocean, faint light filtering through. The band plays on, the notes become submerged & eventually a hymnal drone emerges repeating over and over in slow cycles. This is not the end however, as unlike the ill-fated Vessel of Sleep, this work re-emerges to the surface and into hazy light.
Roughly 2 years in the making, KAWEO is presented in a digipak with a 12 page color booklet in an edition of 900 copies. KAWEO was mastered by Robert Rich...
(more/buy)

Mystified - Passing through the Outer Gates, Eulogy Series Volume 1
(Miscellaneous category)
(Price: $12.99) Ambient and dark ambient soundscapes alike are deftly populated by neo-classical elements, occasionally with an experimental twist.
There are no comparisons to other musicians or albums, as this album and the journey within are distinctly those of Mystified! Dare you join Thomas on his
spiritual journey? Or do you fear to leave this world behind?
Mystified's Passing Through the Outer Gates is presented in an A5 digipak with silver foil-embossed lettering and a specially die-cut cover whose
coffin-shaped hole reveals only a hint of the true album cover artwork underneath! Featuring David Demaret`s Burning Souls painting, with additional graphics
and layout by Eclipse Media. Limited to 500 copies...
(more/buy)

Mystified - Primal Mystification (Ltd CDR)
(Hypnos Secret Sounds section)
(Price: $9.99, ltd cdr) Mystified is a pseudonym for Thomas Park, an ambient/electronic
musician who lives in the midwestern USA. He's been prolific under
the Mystified name as well as the Mister Vapor project, but this is
his first release with Hypnos Secret Sounds. Most recently, Mystified
has collaborated with Nunc Stans on a release "One Thousand
Dreams" on the Dataobscura label, and he has previously collaborated
with Robin Storey (Rapoon) and Nigel Ayers (Nocturnal Emissions).

One of the things we enjoy at Hypnos is helping expose listeners to artists
they may not have heard before, and that includes even artists whose work has been
released widely on a variety of labels. The work of Mystified, while elsewhere
working with more pronounced electronic rhythms, here emphasizes deep, slow-moving
textures. Primal Mystification includes subtle and restrained percussive
elements but is definite geared toward the listener who loves deep, thick drone work.

Mystified himself says of this recording:
"Primal Mystification emerged from drone sounds, similar to the way we humans
emerged from the primordial ooze. Oscillating ambient bell washes were created using
field recordings and mystical effect processes, and then simple rhythmic and melodic
phrases evolved from the primal material. Sometimes there is a change or development
in the rhythmic material, and always there are changes in the drones, behind, as they
shift and flow. Primal Mystification is a musical union of form and formlessness."

Viridian Sun - Infinite In All Directions
(Hypnos section)
(Price: $10.99) 2009. Viridian Sun is a duo focusing on abstract improvisation, featuring Hypnos
founder Mike Griffin, and Hypnos solo artist David Tollefson. Their last studio album Perihelion
was released a full decade ago on Hypnos, though VS continued to record together and occasionally
perform live. The new album Infinite In All Directions moves into slightly different sonic material, downplaying synthesizer
electronics in favor of guitar and bass guitar, electronically treated and looped. The result
combines sustained, blissful drones, along with occasionally strange, complex overlapping loops.

Many Hypnos listeners have asked over the years when we'll release something new by Viridian Sun, and we now
present an album that may be their best yet: Infinite In All Directions.

relapxych.O - Ripples on the Surface of Time & Space / Last Industrial Estate Vol. 1
(Miscellaneous category)
(Price: $9.99) You might recall Relapxych.0 (aka Anders Petersen from Sweden) on 2008's Hypnos compilation, Message From a Subatomic
World. Here's a nwe split album on his own label, Ghosts Sounds.
Pt. 1 relapxych.O - Ripples on the Surface of Time and Space.
Pt. 2 Last Industrial Estate - Last Industrial Estates Vol. 1...
(more/buy)

Steve Roach - Afterlight
(Steve Roach category)
(Price: $13.99) This long-form piece delivers the listener deep inside a multi-dimensional realm of forming clouds, an endless expanse with no boundaries or sense of temporal limits. Amorphous strands of harmonic lumina emerge and recede in a constant unfolding and reconfiguring state for the duration of this pure atmospheric suspension....
(more/buy)

Resonant Drift - The Call
(Resonant Drift category)
(Price: $12.99) 2009. This new one has a beautiful Steve Roach-like flavor, likely due to the duo's recent study with Roach, as
well as his tweaks and mastering of the final recording. Definitely recommended.

"The Call is the new release from the duo of Bill Olien and Gary Johnson, known collectively as Resonant Drift. Combining synthesizers, guitars, percussion, ethnic instruments and field recordings, this deep and organic release explores ambient and atmospheric territory, and boasts expert mastering and sonic enhancements by Steve Roach at his world famous Timeroom studio."
-Morpheus Music...
(more/buy)

Parks - Hidden
(Infraction category)
(Price: $14.99) Parks is Russian ambient/electronic artist Igor Bystrov who has been working on his craft for nearly 15 years. Hidden may be his most accomplished and varied work to date. Sitting somewhere in the midst of the great 90\'s ambient artists, the (rather) new wave of Russian electronic artists all the while admiring from a distance the Kompakt pop-ambient of this decade - Parks seamless blend of it all has culminated in a brilliant finish. Presented in a 6 panel digipak...
(more/buy)

Eluder - The Most Beautiful Blue
(Infraction category)
(Price: $14.99) "The careful choreography of retreat and remotion is what Patrick Benolkin is about, so you won't be surprised when walls within and without come down, dissolved by the drift inside The Most Beautiful Blue. Eluder offers here a sonic solution in which thoughts, mirroring the music's mood movements, may dissolve, float free, and finally submerge, without fear of being taken down." -Alan Lockett...
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Loren Dent - Anthropology Vol. 1
(Infraction category)
(Price: $14.99) "This album is like a soundtrack to life itself- one of joy, love, fear, pain, loss, grieving, euphoria and one which transcends time. Wondrous layers of sound are rich and constantly evolving, always emotional and hypnotic. Loren\'s tools are both analogue and digital, and his use of both is a joy to behold." -Norman Records...
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Seren Ffordd - Stellar Nurseries (Ltd CDR)
(Hypnos Secret Sounds section)
(Price: $9.99, ltd cdr) 2009. Stellar Nurseries is the first in a series of Seren Ffordd reissues planned to continue over the
coming year or so. These recordings, by an artist whose work is always mysterious and sometimes
ominous, were previously released on the Umbra and Penumbra labels operated (by Hypnos artist Oophoi) out of Italy,
though the artist himself resides in Wales. He first connected with Hypnos on the compilation CD Sounds of a
Universe Overheard, to which he contributed a track, and Hypnos Secret Sounds released his album
Veils, Shadows.

This recording exhibits a pleasing serenity, a great example of the artist's characteristic combination of dark and light
elements into a balanced, deep contrast.

Atheus - Soundscapes and Drones
(miscellaneous category)
(Price: $9.99)
"Stunning full-length album from Atheus, I have been looking forward to this release ever since the first tentative audio samples appeared via myspace what must be more than twelve months ago now. So here it is, arrived only today and I have played this album through from start to finish three times already, it really is that good. Mysterious, intrusive, threatening ambience, almost drone-like in parts, and sounds totally amazing when adjusted correctly and played very, very loud. Thoroughly mesmerising, I can whole-heartedly say this is one of the most outstanding albums of year and certainly in my top three! Breathtaking."
--interstellarsounds.com

"Unique all Ambient & Drones release from one of the best Minimal Dub project around."
--Cycliclaw.com

Birds of Tin - Altarwise
(New - Diophantine Label category)
(Price: $11.99) 2009. This is the latest release on the interesting (new to us) label discovery, Diophantine Discs, from which
we'll soon have other items available. The two lengthy tracks of Altarwise were recorded in late 2004 and remastered earlier this year. The first track is a 30-minute experimental work that gradually moves through a wide range of sounds (echoing chimes, mysterious noises, subdued clanking, drones). The second piece is an epic 46-minute composition of deep ambient/drone music that manages to float freely through the listener\'s imagination while keeping his attention.
While many modern day experimental artists have moved on into the computer realm, Birds of Tin has remained true to the experimental sound of tape loops, lo-fi samplers, and collections of unique toy instruments running through small fx boxes. The sound of the work may have become more cohesive and seamless over the years, but the methods have largely remained the same....
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Nunc Stans and Mystified - One Thousand Dreams
(Blue Oasis/Dataobscura category)
(Price: $13.99) An immersive set of richly detailed dreamscapes that flow and shift with a sophisticated ease and engaging lyric beauty. Expect a haunting mix of grainy drone, sonic curiosities, and occasional treated field recording, all bound together by exquisite drawn-out melodic lines....
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Phaenon - Submerged
(malignant category)
(Price: $13.99) Visually and sonically enveloping, this is an album of space and texture, slowly revealing a psychoactive soundscape of majestic, arcing timbres, circadian buzzes, and expansive drones. Heavy, and cosmically weighty in the beginning, Submerged evolves into something more minimalist and serene, radiating a celestial beauty, yet becoming even more bleak and suffocating as it progresses over itâ€˜s 66 minute time frame. Experienced from start to finished, thereâ€™s a palpable sense of drifting and drowning, of being carried away into an endless, interstellar vacuum...
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Matt Borghi - The Phantom Light (Ltd CDR)
(Hypnos Secret Sounds section)
(Price: $9.99, ltd cdr) 2009. The Phantom Light is the third release in our Matt Borghi reissue series. Originally issued in an edition of only 30 copies in 2006,
this Hypnos Secret Sounds reissue will be the first opportunity for this recording to be heard by most Borghi listeners. The four long pieces
exhibit Borghi's characteristic simplicity and restraint.

Matt says:
The Phantom Light is a work that’s comprised four compositions with titles derived from some of the most remote lighthouses on the northern
Great Lakes.

The works are inspired by sailor’s tales of being adrift on The Great Lakes during storms, and catastrophic weather. Sailors, looking out on the
horizon for a sign of life, a light of hope, aimed their ships towards the safety of these phantom lighthouses hoping to get to a safe harbor. Often
times these phantom lighthouses just lead to a rocky shoal and a watery death. These “phantom” lights have been a thing of myth for as long as The
Great Lakes freshwater seas have been sailed.

In many ways, The Phantom Light is a sequel to Huronic Minor, as Great Lakes lore, and Matt Borghi’s own experiences on The Great Lakes
were the creative impetus for this work.

Steve Brand - Children of Alcyone (Ltd CDR)
(Hypnos Secret Sounds section)
(Price: $11.99, ltd cdr) 2009. The second release by Steve Brand on our Hypnos Secret Sounds imprint, Children of Alcyone
demonstrates the characteristic otherworldly quality of the artist's best work. Generally quite simple, at times
singlemindedly minimal, this work is nonetheless possessed of a depth and complexity that are revealed upon
repeated listening. Stretched-out drone structures combine with subtle tribal/ethnic elements to create very
effective atmospheres for almost hypnotic relaxation.

Though we're tempted to call Brand one of our favorite "new" artists, in fact he has been
active as a recording artist for quite some time, having released many recordings under the name Augur, along
with a handful of solo and collaborative works under his own name this past year.

Steve Brand says:"The inspiring energy for Children of Alcyone was/is the books of Barbara Marciniak. Marciniak's books are said to be channeled information from the
Pleiadians, our distant multi-dimensional ancestors from the Pleiades constellation. (Alcyone is the name of the "central sun" of this constellation.) Upon being
introduced to these books, I was immediately taken by their wit and irreverence, the nearly unfathomable timeline of events, and their uncanny relevance to
things that are currently taking place here on Earth (the first of these books were channeled in the early 90's).

The initial sound sketches for "Children" were begun in September of 2007 in the tidal wave of energy that was Steve Roach's "Into the SoundCurrent" masters'
class, and elaborated upon, refined, and re-energized over the intervening 3 years in my own studio. The result is a sometimes murky, sometimes soothing,
sometimes phantasmagorical series of excursions through multiple timelines, and myriad possible half lit universes that other versions of ourselves inhabit.

My friend, and frequent collaborator, Jonathan Benham, not only created the art for this disk, but contributed energy and sounds to a couple of tracks with
his array of homemade instruments during a series of improvisations between he and myself captured at my studio."

Alio Die & Aglaia - Private History of the Clouds
(Infraction category)
(Price: $14.99) 2009. Latest from the Infraction label. They say: "This has been in the works for almost 1.5 years. Is there finer ambience (save
Oophoi perhaps) coming from Italy outside of these two acts? And a collaboration to boot. Nice. 900 copies in the Japanese style mini-lp matte
gatefold sleeve. Beautiful layout courtesy of the ever-impressive designwork of Pyhai....
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Birds of Tin - Rinpoche (Ltd CDR)
(Hypnos Secret Sounds section)
(Price: $9.99, ltd cdr) 2008. Birds of Tin is a pseudonym for experimental sound artist Brooke Oates. He has previously collaborated with
Rapoon and Augur (Steve Brand), and released several solo and collaborative works on a variety of labels,
most notably Manifold and Mystery Sea.

We are pleased to announce the first release by Birds of Tin, Rinpoche, on the Hypnos Secret Sounds sub-label. This
recording comes from an in-studio live improvisation from 2002, and covers a strange and varied sonic territory. Working in the
realm of sound art as much as "music," the artist creates an effect that is hypnotic and at times seemingly psychoactive.

"Birds Of Tin is the one man project of Brooke Oates and there has been no new release since 2004. That perhaps might be right,
since the recordings here on 'Rinpoche' were improvised in 2002. Birds Of Tin had releases on Manifold, Solipsism, Mystery Sea and
XZF. What Oates does here is pretty much outside the lines of Hypnos: no finely woven tapestries of synthesizers, but a likewise finely
woven pattern of all sorts of heavily treated sound objects. Lots of echo and reverb on the tea cups that is. Two pieces, together spanning
some seventy-five minutes, whereas one would have been enough. Another difference is the improvisational aspect of the music, also not
unlike Hypnos. Birds Of Tin seems to me a man who loves his record collection - don't we all - and particularly records by zoviet*france
and to a lesser extent Rapoon. Sometimes things are a bit too haphazard in the way its put together, but then in other moments he proofs to
be capable of producing a nice tune. A pair of scissors to splice the tape would be handy though."
--Reviewed by Frans DeWaard, Vital Weekly

Various - Echoes of Polyhymnia
(Hypnos label)
(Price: was $12.99, now $7.99) 2008. New, special price!
Polyhymnia was one of the Muses of Greek myth, specifically the Muse of sacred hymn. Echoes of Polyhymnia compiles
music in ambient and related genres composed and recorded exclusively by women.
This genre is so male-dominated generally that we had a lot of fun gathering interesting ambient sounds, including some
works that have one foot in ambient territory and another foot in one of several different, related genres. It covers styles and
flavors as diverse as ambient, drone, glitch, vocal collage, goth and electronica.

Hypnos manager (and artist) Lena Griffin curated this specially-themed compilation which gathers an assortment of ambient &
atmospheric sound works from around the world. This project reveals a totally new angle on ambient music, more diverse and
wide-ranging than all previous ambient compilations from Hypnos. Ranging from ethereal to dark to pretty to spooky to melodic,
we think this album displays a solidly worthwhile musical and soundscape content beyond just the curiosity and "I've never
seen that before" factor of the theme.

"The nine Muses struck up a lifestirring melody. Polyhymnia, nursingmother of the dance, waved her arms and sketched in the
air an image of a soundless voice, speaking with hands and moving eyes in a graphic picture of silence full of meaning."
--The Dionysiaca of Nonnus

Saul Stokes - Villa Galaxia
(Binary section)
(Price: $10.99) 2008. Always one of the most popular artists on the Hypnos and Binary labels through the years, Saul Stokes is also one we've been very
proud to "launch" into the ambient/electronica world, going back to Saul's first album which was also the first album on Hypnos, Washed
in Mercury in 1997. The first new work by Saul Stokes on Hypnos/Binary since Fields in 2005,
this is certainly one of the most anticipated discs we've released in years.

Saul Stokes says:
Stokesí 8th solo album to date, Villa Galaxia is a hyperfusion of sonic exploration seeded in Stokesí
seminary music past, while arcing into a completely new genre defining collection of songs. Stripping away any
notion of ambient drone or chill out labeling, Villa Galaxia surfs its own ocean of contemporary electronic music
culture with eccentric listenable experimentalism wrapped in catchy lyrical orchestras of electronic
fireworks....
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Sans Serif - Tones for LaMonte (Ltd CDR)
(Hypnos Secret Sounds section)
(Price: $9.99, ltd cdr) 2008. Sans Serif is an alter ego of Forrest Fang, the
talented multi-instrumentalist and composer whose most
recent solo album Gongland was released on Projekt in
2000. He has also collaborated with Carl Weingarten on
the album Invisibility released on The Foundry, as
well as contributing instrumentally to the works of other
artists such as Robert Rich.

Unlike the more traditionally structured and "musical" work Fang releases under his own name, the Sans Serif
project is focused on minimalism. This project in particular is a tribute to the influential minimalist
composer LaMonte Young, whose work was known for the use of long, sustained tones and alternate tunings.

Tones for LaMonte bridges the two, related worlds of avant-garde classical influence, and modern ambient drone.

M. Griffin - Fabrications
(Hypnos label)
(Price: was $12.99, now $7.99) 2008.
Originally announced in 1997 as the follow-up by Hypnos founder Mike Griffin to his debut Sudden Dark, Fabrications has been
reworked, abandoned, restarted from scratch, back-burnered, reimagined, and left frozen in carbonite. Among those who have followed Hypnos
from the beginning, Fabrications achieved a certain notoriety as the album always promised for release in the coming year, which never
quite arrived. 2008 is finally the year in which Fabrications is revealed, perhaps appropriate for the 10-year anniversary of its original planned
release date, 1998.

Generally known as an ambient minimalist, utilizing synthesizers for most of his work, this time M. Griffin took advantage of "real world" sounds,
captured with binaural microphones using a portable digital audio recorder.
For this release, Griffin built up collages of numerous location recording elements, including cars driving on freeways, people walking in long echoing
hallways, the ocean waves in Kona at night, a metalworking factory with heavy machinery crunching away, distant trains, and clothes driers. These
elements were manipulated, combined, worked-on and re-worked, and overlaid with looped spoken elements later created by Griffin in the studio.
The end result comes out something like the Zoviet France soundtrack to a David Lynch film, that is, a dark and dream-like collage of loops, spoken
fragments, disembodied whispers, and the echo of far-off machinery...